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About The IP Law Outline

The IP Law Outline outlines and summarizes the patent-related law and issues from the U.S. Supreme Court cases and the IP-related law and issues from all of the precedential Federal Circuit cases since August 2003 (along with most of the nonprecedential cases since January 2008).

The reader will not find many pin citations in the IP Law Outline -- for a good reason. The IP Law Outline is intended as an additional resource for finding patent and other IP law-related cases from the Federal Circuit relevant to your own case. Each case should then be read in its entirety to achieve the "careful, candid, and complete legal analysis" requested by the court (by former Chief Judge Michel) in 2006, i.e., by "gleaning the law of a particular area from careful reading of the full text of a group of related precedents for all they say that is dispositive and for what they hold."

The IP Law Outline reveals how the law and issues in the current precedential Federal Circuit cases relate to the court's earlier cases addressing the same law and same or similar issues. For easy comparison, the current entries in the IP Law Outline are highlighted in red to distinguish them from the earlier entries. And, of course, all of the cases cite the even earlier relevant Federal Circuit cases.

Another prominent and important feature of the IP Law Outline is the comprehensive listings of cases at the beginning of many of the sections and subsections. The IP Law Outline also includes subsections specific to pharma and biotech-related law and issues within the substantive patent law sections, as well as, for easy cross-reference, a BIOTECH/PHARMA CASES section that lists the precedential pharma and biotech cases along with a summary of the technology in each case.

I appreciate that you share my passion for recent developments in IP law at the Federal Circuit - and at the Supreme Court. Thank you and good luck in your case!